


inflorescence

by medea_morgana_midas



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Flowers, Original Character(s), Purple Prose, i'm just doing this so i have a place to store my work tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-05-29 12:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15072758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medea_morgana_midas/pseuds/medea_morgana_midas
Summary: the process of flowering.





	1. kennedia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chats are had, spoilers are given, truth is to be found.

she has read the last page and spoiled the endings, but not even tried to give respect to the words. 

you owe it to the author, i say, to read the beginnings before you open the last page of the book, and she says she doesn’t owe anyone anything, and i say yes, you do. 

she says she just wants to know how it ends, i say how would you know that without the beginning, she says the beginning is just buildup to the end, to the truth of the book.

  * truth is not found in the backs of paperbacks or in the endings of novels, it is not something you seek and find after years of much deliberation. truth is subjective. truth is the question “why?” rephrased, reframed, asked and asked again. you are drunk- why? you are drunk because your girlfriend left you- and why did she leave you?- _for another man_ \- and why that man?- _he was more than i was_ \- and why was he more?- _because i’ve always been less _\- and why are you less?- _because i’m a failure_ \- why?– _i’m a failure because daddy said so, mommy yelled so, classmates jeered so and sister whined so, and i have always been less_ \- why?- _daddy said so because of the bottle, mommy yells so because of daddy, classmates jeered so because they didn’t know any better, they were young but so was i, so was i, so was i- and daddy fell to addiction and alcohol because– mommy loves daddy because–the classmates weren’t taught any better, sister wasn’t taught any better and still no one is teaching her–because–because_ –because. what may be the cause? __
__
  * so. your girlfriend left you. and you’re caught in _how_ s, how you could’ve saved the relationship, the one thing you would’ve had to change to keep the engine running, and you try to retrace your steps. you follow the thread; you blame the new guy, her new toy, at first, but you don’t know him and the thread is too short, the trail too cold and unused. then you blame the girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, now, but blaming her means blaming the relationship, and the relationship is what you hope to salvage. you start in on everyone, your daddy and his old-fashioneds, your mom and her meds, your classmates and co-workers and friends and your sister, you keep asking why until you can’t answer the question anymore, hypothesis after hypothesis as to the why but never any concrete solution, until some threads are too tangled and some with ends you can’t even see and some cut ridiculously short, or you just cannot see, and _why cannot you see the truth?_
  * so you start in on yourself, unraveling under your own ministrations, why am i like this, why do i do that, what have i become and why have i become it, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. but it all leads back to your parents and your youth and the people around you and your sister coworker friends classmates mommy daddy please love me, threads all tangles and no neat spools, and there’s the three fates all knitting in a corner. they have book clubs now, do you hear, they eat health food and gossip on their early morning jogs and talk to the managers of retail workers when given what they deem sub-par service, but the magic is still there, in the fabric they weave with no pattern anyone can see, all tangles and flash and colour. you search for the truth and you cannot find the objectivity, the clear, hard, facts, and why? why is that? why cannot you see the truth? this word has a meaning, as words go, but oh! nobody agrees on what the truth is, so dictionary, oh dictionary, give me the fact, the objectivity, give me truth, and dictionary says it has three meanings, and which is the truth? it can be a verb or a noun, or a verb and a noun, isn’t it, except not in the same sentence, the same word in different flavours in the many, many, sentences, isn’t it? give me truth! is it not a verb and a noun? well, yes, but not at the same time. then give me the truth! what does this word mean? that depends on the sentence, doesn’t it? and i say truth is subjective. truth is found in definition, and definition depends on person. what would you define this word to mean, person oh person of cold fact, hard truth, blunt honesty say you? be it verb, or noun, or verb and noun, or neither verb _or_ noun, or something else entirely; what does this word mean?
__ 


__and she has spoiled the ending for me without reading the beginning, and i’ve read the beginning, and truth be told i had read a bit of the end, too, just to satisfy the whys and hows, and she has not spoiled me in anything i had not already knew.__

but it is the principle of the thing. truth is subjective, i say, it depends on the person; but the thing with that is it means a lot of people view truth is objective and look for it anyways, and sometimes they find their subjective truths and proclaim them objective and now they have churches, but: whatever. the ending provides a delightful end to the tangles, and here is what is great about books: they are not life. 

__the threads are neat. often, they lead to gaps in the fabric, but still–-neat. and there, i trace the ends of the threads, minimal tangling and easy-to-unravel knots, but there– is the truth still there?_ _


	2. sweet-brier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some writings about flowers and art and words and vincent van gogh.

i’m sad and tired. that’s just a fact. i’m sad, and tired, and sometimes i want to die. the sky is blue, the grass is green, i am sad and tired and suicidal to a fault. i like beauty. faces and hair and clothes, all styled. flowers and gardens. metal sculptures, as well as marble. the rose mallow for the sunny and the sunflower for the depressed, _hallelujah!_ if vincent van gogh had taken medication, we wouldn’t have the sunflowers, some people say. other people argue back that vincent van gogh _had_ taken medication and we have the sunflowers because of it, but i wonder. even if he hadn’t taken the medication, why is his suffering worth your flowers? if medication helped, even a little, why would the lack of help be worth your priceless goddamn paint, paintings, your frames hanging on our museum walls, art theory, looking for meaning, looking for truth, symbolism, isms, symbols, swirls of colour, the goddamn fucking sunflowers. i write because i am sad, and tired, and i crave death like it’s delectable chocolate cake. sometimes i get ridiculously happy and i do the things i wanted to and then i go home and _i write about it._ the words still come, because the words are mine, i am made of words and you cannot take it away from me, give me pills to help me be okay, _please_ let me be okay, i still have the words at my fingertips. what do you want to do? break me down as a child, i’m a nerd, of course, plant shame in my scalp, let it grow in my hair, get haircuts but it grows back longer faster, teach me to write, the sadness and the night and the fucking sunflowers, make me need to write your art, make me have to do it to live and let go, make it necessary, make me depend on it, make me serve you my thrown-up words on plates of gold or sheets of torn notebook paper, is that what you want? is the destruction of a child worth it, because the way she lives in words makes you feel things? fuck you. i am the wicked witch of my own story, you took the crowns and the gowns and the little glass slipper and the starry nights away from me, now i’m green and melting, fuck you. i’m sad and tired, i love rose mallows, hibiscuses, but they’re for the sunny and i’m still cold and desolate even though i’m sat in the fucking philippines, better just content myself with my sunflowers and lack of medication, _hallelujah_ , fuck you. the sky isn’t always blue, sometimes it’s the most beautiful shades of pink yellow purple orange green black starry, starry nights, grass can burn to brown wilt to yellow and come back green again, and i’m sad and tired and _oh god_ i want to die but not always, not always, not always, things deviate from the normal, motherfucker. these words were made by my ancestors and changed by my ancestors shaped by my ancestors and they evolved under the shadow of my culture, these words are shared with me through the books i’ve read and the people i’ve spoken to, bless you english, bless you tagalog, bless you conversation, talking writing reading to help me not die even when i want to so so bad. these words are mine, goddammit, they’re in my fingertips and they tie me to the ground and away from the gravestone and i’ll be happy or sad or tired or depressed or _happy_ and i’ll still order them and write them how i want to on my own plates of gold or china, on my own sheets of notebook paper, ballpoint or keyboard they’re my words the same. this garden will be fertilised with medication and watered by blue ink and salt tears and it will contain both rose mallows and sunflowers, the sunny and the cold, hibiscus and helianthus, _hallelujah!_ , fuck. you.


	3. narcissus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a one-sided conversation and confrontation with your friend, brother, torturer.

you’re a hypocrite, which, i suppose, is to be expected. i like pretty things. i appreciate beauty in a lot, and humans are a special kind of beautiful. i like fire. you hate me liking it, but you don’t hate it or me. you’re a special kind of deluded, a hypocrite of the highest esteem. a message at two, no, three AM, telling me you want to die. anything new? i tell you i’m tired, i say _yes, me too._ you promptly lose your shit, never seen anything like it. i’m not allowed to die. i’m not allowed to want to die. i’m not allowed to like fire, to appreciate beauty for what it is. what else am i not allowed to do? i like soda, coca-cola sprite mountain dew but never _ever_ pepsi, and you say it’s bad for me. i tell you i like it because it’s bad for me. you tut over my destructive tendencies like you’re a paragon of virtue, and then i ask you to run to the store to buy me some and you get me three bottles and two for yourself. it’s okay, being a hypocrite. i scoff at princesses while admiring their aesthetic, tiaras and gowns, i’ve always been seen in leather. i’m versatile, but you’d scoff at me in a dress. i’ve had all the glass slippers taken away from me, you know, i’m a witch, i’m green and melting, self-destructing, destroying the world in the meantime. you have to admit, flying monkeys would be a sight to see. if i’m the wicked witch of the west, you’d be a dragon, except i can’t be a princess in a castle, not anymore. you’re wasting your time. you’re defending a girl with an army of winged fucking monkeys, against _herself_ , man, you’re a dumbass. i hate you. i heard a girl call me a bitch and i heard you agree. i’m obsessive, i’m self destructive, i spend the next three days worrying whether you see me as that, as a bitch, because i do try, i do, because in front of you i’m never allowed to be vulnerable, you build my walls for me, you build them to keep you from me and me from you and me from myself, what the fuck, man. i ask you whether you think i’m a bitch. you rage on me for, like, fifteen minutes. i’m not allowed to call myself a bitch, but everyone else is. i’m not allowed to think that i’m flawed, but you are. i like pretty things and fire and conversation, but you talk in subtext, talking to you is a nightmare, yet i do it every night, what the fuck, me. you tell me my love for beauty will get me in trouble. you ignore that i’m not all eyes, sweetheart, i have a brain capable of sensing danger and avoiding it, while still having eyes to appreciate the pretty things, the dangerous things. doll, i don’t let anyone destroy me but myself. i like fire most of all. you proclaim that fire isn’t forever. my goal isn’t forever, but you say it should be. the goal was never forever, honey, i don’t eat until i eat too much and i drink more painkillers than is strictly necessary and i live off of sugar and caffeine, i’m not addicted to drugs or alcohol but that’s mostly because i hate the idea that they’ll destroy me and my reputation before i do, i climb things to jump off, i devour just to vomit, the goal was never forever, _honey,_ the goal was to live until i physically can’t, mentally can’t, the goal was to live until i died of suicide, like, two years ago. apparently i’m not supposed to commit that, now, and i won’t, but that doesn’t change my lifestyle. my worldview is intact, my lifespan’s a little bit lengthened. i’ll die of natural causes and my life won’t have mattered more than anyone else’s, but i’ll have had all these mistakes and that’s enough, for me. why can’t i just like fire to watch it burn? you’re not the goal. you exist, you’re a hypocrite, you’re a fire-breathing dragon, but you’re going to be here forever anyways. 

you build your walls and i’ll burn my bridges, we’ll make the space between us the prettiest thing in all the world.


End file.
